This friction stops people doing stuff: stops them creating, sharing,
collaborating, and using data - especially amongst more distributed
communities. It kills the cycles of find, improve, share that would make for a dynamic,
productive and attractive (open) data ecosystem.

We need to make an ecosystem that, like open-source for software, is useful and
attractive to those without any principled interest, the vast majority who
simply want the best tool for the job, the easiest route to their goal.

We think that by getting a few key pieces in place we can reduce friction
enough to revolutionize how the (open) data ecosystem operates with massively
improved data quality, utilization and sharing.

We’re creating:

Standards: A small set of lightweight ‘data package’ standards and patterns
providing a base structure on which tooling and integration can build.

Tooling and Integration: Making it easy to use and publish data packages from
your existing apps and workflows whether that’s Excel, R, or Hadoop!

Outreach and Community: Engaging and evangelizing around the concepts,
standards and tooling and building a community of users and contributors.